A Small Town Christmas Read online

  “It won’t be hard,” said George. “We never met a cookie we didn’t like.”

  “That’s what we bakers like to hear,” Sarah said.

  Her mission accomplished, she left. The minute the door closed Dad leaned over the potpie and inhaled deeply. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about, home cookin’.”

  Josh had to admit the pie was good. So were the cookies.

  Simply looking at them took him back in time to the days when life was perfect and he’d come home to the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.

  Chocolate. Chocolate shop. Chocolate babe. She sure looked tempting, but the vibes she put out said, Keep away, sucker.

  Too bad Sarah Goodwin didn’t have a daughter who was just as friendly as she was. And who looked like Jamie Moore.

  The bakery was busy Monday morning, with throngs of people. They were going to run out of Sarah’s herbed bread before closing. Her scones were about to be history, too, she thought as she slid a fresh batch of orange oatmeal cookies onto the tray behind the glass counter.

  “Hi, there,” said a friendly male voice from the other side of the counter.

  She looked up to see Leo Steele.

  “What’s good today? Besides the baker.”

  “Just about anything,” said Sarah. She managed to find a smile for him. After all, he was a paying customer. And a neighbor. And he was just trying to be friendly and fit in.

  “How about a couple of those oatmeal cookies? Those look good.”

  Sarah nodded and slipped two in a little bakery bag. “Chrissy, you want to ring these up?”

  “Sure,” said Chrissy, taking over the transaction.

  “How are the good deeds going?” Leo asked Sarah, obviously not ready to get passed on to someone else.

  “Going good. How about you, Leo? Have you been paying it forward?”

  “You betcha,” he said. He caught sight of Sarah’s new little friends skipping up to the counter, their grandpa right behind them. “Hey, girls. Do you like cookies?”

  George had a hand on each girl’s shoulder in a heartbeat. “Yeah, they do, and we’re here to get them some.”

  Leo stuck out a hand. “Leo Steele. I’m new here. Looking for my good deed for the day. These look pretty good. I thought I’d share.”

  “We don’t let the girls take treats from strangers,” George said, but he shook the man’s hand.

  “Oh, yeah. A different world from when our kids were little, huh? How about I give them to you and you can pass them on?” Leo handed him the bag.

  George nodded. “Thanks.”

  Leo turned back to Sarah. “Guess I’d better buy some more.”

  “I guess you’d better go to the end of the line,” snapped the middle-aged woman in back of him.

  “No problem,” said Leo easily. “But I’ve got a better idea. How about you let me buy you something?” he asked, giving Sarah a wink.

  The woman gawked at him.

  “We’re trying to put the heart back in Heart Lake,” he told her, “like it said in the paper.”

  “I read about that,” she said. She looked speculatively at Leo. Sarah noticed she didn’t have a ring on her left hand. “Well, okay. That’s really nice of you.”

  The woman made it worth her while, ordering a dozen ginger cookies, a loaf of the vanishing herb bread, and a piece of lavender cake.

  “Make that two pieces,” said Leo. “Want to join me?” he asked the woman. “I’m new here.”

  So many women, so little time, Sarah couldn’t help thinking.

  “Well, I do have to run some errands. But I can do them later,” the woman added quickly.

  Leo paid for the goodies as well as a couple of mochas and they moved off down the line.

  “That was smooth,” said George. “I’ll have to tell my son about this place. It looks like the best pickup joint in town.”

  “Do we still get a peanut butter cookie?” Lissa asked him.

  “Of course,” Sarah answered, and passed two cookies over the counter.

  Lissa took a big bite.

  “Good?” asked Sarah, and she nodded.

  “I guess we’ll have to learn to make cookies, girls,” said George.

  The chicken nugget king making cookies, Sarah couldn’t quite picture it. But after they left a new picture began to form in her mind. By the end of the day it was crystal clear.

  ELEVEN

  What’s this?” asked Dawn Schoemaker, one of Sarah’s best customers, pointing to the flyer advertising Sarah’s new brain baby. “A baking class for girls? You must be going through granddaughter withdrawals.”

  “I am,” Sarah admitted.

  Steph and the girls checked in on a regular basis, but the regularity had gone from daily to a couple of times during the week and once on weekends. Hardly surprising, considering their schedule. Steph was already working part-time, and the girls were busy with their new school. Then there was church, ballet lessons, and Katie had joined Camp Fire.

  That news had given Sarah’s heartstrings a wistful tug. She had enjoyed a brief stint as a Camp Fire girl, and acquired a nice collection of colorful beads for her vest by the time her dad got transferred and they had to move. She remembered the fun of earning those home craft beads, especially baking in the kitchen with her mother. She had been anticipating holiday baking with her granddaughters this year. Helping some other little girls had seemed like the perfect solution to her lonely grandma blues.

  “That’s some way to put the heart back in Heart Lake,” Dawn said. “Are you going to hold the class here at the bakery?”

  Allowing a group of little girls to run around the bakery kitchen wouldn’t go over well with the health department. “No, I’ll have it at my house.”

  “Boy, are you brave,” Dawn said in a tone of voice suggesting that Sarah’s bravery teetered on the edge of insanity.

  “It will be fun,” Sarah insisted. Of course it would be fun. How could it not? “Do you know anyone who might be interested?”

  Dawn thought a moment. “Actually, I do. The mom’s a nurse, and she works nights a lot.”

  “Is she a single mom?”

  “No, but she might as well be. Her husband works construction on and off. When he’s in charge, the kids pretty much run wild.”

  “How many kids are in this family?” Sarah suddenly had a vision of children running wild all over her house.

  “Two boys, teenagers, and a girl about nine.”

  Nine was the right age. “What’s she like?”

  “A bit of a handful,” said Dawn. “Last year she helped herself to my peonies to make a bouquet for a mock wedding she and some of her friends were having.”

  “Creative little thing,” Sarah said diplomatically.

  “She is a character,” Dawn admitted. “Her mom doesn’t seem to have the energy to keep up with her.”

  Sarah was pretty sure that meant she wouldn’t, either. She’d never done anything like this before. Maybe she should start out slowly, with well-behaved, quiet children. Then, if all went well, she could branch out.

  “Anyway, I’ll have her mom give you a call,” said Dawn. Before Sarah could voice her decision to ease into the baking class business, Dawn had taken her box of teacakes and sailed out the door.

  Oh, well. By the time the woman called the class would be full, Sarah would make sure of it.

  That very afternoon she recruited her first students. “Does it sound like something they’d enjoy?” she asked George Armstrong after she’d explained her idea to him.

  “Would they! Sign ’em up. What do I owe you?”

  Sarah smiled. “Nothing. This is something I want to do.”

  “Well, it works for me,” said George. “I’m sure my son will think it’s a great idea, too.”

  Okay, she thought as she hung up the phone, there were two. She’d start with six, a nice manageable number. She should have no trouble finding four more little girls like the Armstrongs. The class wou
ld be full before you could say “Cookie Monster.”

  “You got another taker,” Sam said when she came home from the bakery the next afternoon.

  All right. She knew it.

  “Betty Bateman just signed up her grandkid.”

  Sarah’s excitement melted faster than butter on a hot burner. “Betty? Oh, no,” she moaned. “Just feed me rhubarb leaves right now and be done with it.”

  “You said you were taking the next four who called,” Sam reminded her as he poured himself a mug of coffee. “Anyway, what’s wrong with Beano?”

  “Beanie,” Sarah corrected. She took the mug from his hand and downed a big gulp. “And nothing. It’s just that every time Betty brings her over I’m going to get Bettyized. I’ll be lucky if we can get anything done with Betty at the door wanting to talk all afternoon.”

  “There is that,” Sam said. “You should have warned me.”

  “It’s not your fault. And if it had even occurred to me that Betty would jump on this I would have, believe me.”

  “Doesn’t her son live in Seattle? That’s a long way to come for a baking class.”

  Sarah shook her head. “They moved to Lyndale this summer. That’s close enough for Betty to pick up Beanie after school and run her here.”

  Sam gave Sarah a sympathetic shoulder rub. “Sorry, babe.” And then he ruined his good deed by adding, “But you asked for it.”

  She turned and frowned at him. “Now, what is that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged. “You were the girl who wanted to change the world.”

  “Just Heart Lake,” she corrected.

  “And you will, one pain in the butt at a time.”

  “Oh, very funny.”

  The phone rang. “It’s probably for you,” Sam said, heading for the living room.

  “There has to be a reason I married you,” she called after him.

  “Great sex,” he called back.

  She almost retorted that it wasn’t that great, but decided Sam wouldn’t see the humor in it, so she kept her mouth shut. That would be her good deed for the day.

  Sam was right. The call was for her, another woman wanting to sign her daughter up for baking lessons.

  “We’ll be having four after-school classes, Monday afternoons, starting November sixteenth,” Sarah explained. Only four classes. She could manage four weeks of Beanie, dirty fingernails and all. Betty was another matter altogether.

  “This sounds perfect,” said the woman. “I work swing shift a lot and my daughter could really use more girl time. What are you charging?”

  “There’s no cost,” said Sarah.

  “No cost?” The woman sounded shocked.

  “It’s my contribution toward putting the heart back in Heart Lake.”

  “I read about that. Oh, my gosh. You’re the baker from the article.”

  “That’s me.” Changing Heart Lake one pain in the butt at a time.

  “It’s such a great idea. And it’s really awesome of you to do this. I never bake, so this will be a good learning opportunity for Damaris. I know she’ll love it.”

  Sarah hoped so. The thought of shaking Betty off her doorstep every week had only momentarily dampened her enthusiasm. She’d mentally sent Betty packing, and now she could envision herself in the kitchen, surrounded by sweet little girls with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes watching as she took their freshly baked cookies from the oven. The vision sat in her brain like an old magazine ad from the fifties, looking good enough to frame and making her smile as she took down the necessary information.

  “Now all I need is an emergency contact number,” she said.

  “If my husband’s not home you can call me at the hospital,” said the woman. “I’m a nurse.”

  Words began to swirl around the back of Sarah’s mind: nurse, neighbor, peonies. Oh, no. Say it isn’t so. “Do you, by any chance, live near Dawn Schoemaker?” Sarah asked, and held her breath.

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” said the woman. “She’s wonderful. Well, I’d better go. My break is over.”

  Okay, Sarah decided as she hung up, the cooking class was now closed. She only had four girls, but this four would be enough. It will be fun, she told herself. Dawn had probably exaggerated.

  Business had been a little slow at the Chocolate Bar the last couple of days. Jamie was sure it was due to the torrential rains pummeling Heart Lake. Who would want to go out in this? she thought, looking out the window at the downpour.

  “It’s awful out there,” said Clarice. “I’m going to have to swim home. In fact, if it gets any worse I bet I won’t even be able to drive. Maybe you should let me go home early.”

  Hope Wells had warned Jamie about Clarice’s tendency to come in late and want to leave early, but Jamie was made of sterner stuff than Heart Lake’s mild-mannered florist. No way was Clarice leaving until Jamie had squeezed every ounce of work out of her.

  Still, there wasn’t much work to do at this point without customers, and it was almost four. “Okay,” Jamie decided. “First clean the kitchen area while I’m doing my paperwork, then you can scram.” There was no point paying for help when she didn’t need it.

  Fifteen minutes later Clarice was ready to scram. “You know, I think that fudge is starting to get stale.”

  “Hint, hint?”

  Clarice smiled shamelessly. “Soooo?”

  “So, go ahead and take a bag home.”

  “Sweet,” Clarice said, and bounced over to the fudge.

  “Yeah, we’ll see if you’re still saying that when the scale goes up,” Jamie teased.

  “It never does,” said Clarice.

  Another minute and she was out the door, probably with a good two pounds of fudge. Oh, well, Jamie told herself, there’s your good deed for the day. If getting rid of stale fudge counted as a good deed.

  It was winter dark when she closed up and dashed for her car. She was pooped. Like Sarah, she had to get up early on a regular basis to make her inventory, and the long days coupled with the gloomy weather were making her feel like a bear ready to hibernate.

  Heavy raindrops gave her windshield wipers a fight and deepened puddles in the road. The night sky left the lake looking dark, like a perfect home for the Loch Ness monster’s cousin. As she drove, all Jamie could think about was getting inside her cabin, building a fire in the woodstove, and heating up some of the homemade chicken soup Sarah had given her.

  And then she saw the car with the flat tire hunched along the narrow shoulder of the road with its hood raised like a flag. It was raining. It was cold. It was the perfect good deed, especially for her.

  Jamie had always been the last one picked when her friends were choosing teams for softball or kickball, and she’d never been the one her fellow students fought over when it was time for a group science project. But she was always the one they called to hang out with when they wanted to attract boys. Or when they got a flat tire. Her dad had taught her how to change a tire when she got her driver’s license, and had followed up the lesson with the occasional surprise drill. She could still change a tire in her sleep.

  Or in the rain. As she pulled in front of the car she saw the driver behind the foggy windows: an older woman—probably not someone who had changed a lot of tires.

  As Jamie went to the other car, a cold finger of water slipped down her neck. She did her best to ignore it and the shiver it produced and tapped on the driver’s side window. The woman lowered it cautiously. “If you’ve got a spare in your trunk I can get you back on the road in ten minutes.”

  “That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Have you got Triple A or something?” asked Jamie. Although how she’d call them on this stretch of road with its zero cell phone reception was a mystery.

  “I do, but I don’t have one of those portable phones. I’m sure some man will come along soon and help me.”

  “Well, there’s no need to wait for a man,” said Jamie. “I’ve been changing tires since I was sixteen
. Pop your trunk.”

  “It’s so nasty out,” protested the woman.

  Tell me about it. “It sure is, and you don’t want to sit here any longer than you have to,” Jamie informed her, and started walking to the trunk.

  It popped open and she pulled out the spare along with the tire jack. By the time she had them the woman was out in the rain with her, her gray hair quickly sopped and flattened to her head, her coat collar pulled up around her neck.

  “You can wait in the car,” Jamie told her. “No sense both of us getting wet.”

  “What if it tips?” the woman fretted. “No, I’ll wait here with you.”

  Jamie had no desire to get wetter and colder arguing with the woman, so she got to work. There were no streetlights out here, but she managed with the help of her car headlights and the little flashlight on her key chain. She had the car jacked up and the hubcap off and was just wrestling with the second lug nut when a car pulled up behind her, its headlights shining on her work. Flashing red and blue lights added extra color.

  She knew, before she even looked over her shoulder, who was getting out of that patrol car, ruining her perfect, undiluted good deed.

  TWELVE

  Jamie ignored the crunch of heavy male feet on the gravel of the road shoulder and unscrewed another lug nut.

  “Could you ladies use some help?” rumbled a deep voice.

  “Oh, Officer, thank you,” breathed the older woman.

  “I think we’ve got it under control,” said Jamie, maintaining her position in front of the tire.

  “Obviously, you do,” said Josh Armstrong, squatting next to her.

  Those big hands of his drew her gaze like a magnet. They were large, capable hands with squared-off fingers. Once upon a time she’d been a sucker for a man with strong, capable hands like those, but no more. And who cared if he had big shoulders? What was so sexy about big shoulders, anyway? His legs were massive. (Why was she looking?) There was probably nothing small anywhere on Josh Armstrong.

  With that last thought her sex drive took over, driving her crazy. I am not attracted to this man, shouted her brain, trying desperately to call her wandering hormones back to the reservation. And now her nerves were getting into the act. Here it came. No, no, no! She clamped down an upcoming hiccup and about tore apart her esophagus.